Nigeria has dropped off the Global Impunity Index that spotlights countries where journalists are slain and their killers go free.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in its 2020 report released on Wednesday, October 28 titled Getting Away with murder disclosed that Nigeria is the only country to come off the index this year.
One murder in the country, from 2009, is not included in the decade now under scrutiny.
Generally, the report showed little change from a year earlier with Somalia, Syria, Iraq, and South Sudan occupying the worst four spots on the list, in that order, as war and political instability perpetuate the cycle of violence and lawlessness.
CPJ found in its latest report on impunity in retaliatory media killings that incremental progress toward reducing the murders of journalists worldwide is fragile and could be thwarted by legal appeals and lack of political leadership,
During the 10-year index period ending August 31, 2020, 277 journalists according to the report were murdered for their work worldwide and in 83% of those cases, no perpetrators have been successfully prosecuted.
For last year’s index period, CPJ recorded complete impunity in 86% of cases.
